balance
by Anera527
Summary: In which Crowley acts like a demon because he is one, and Aziraphale's reaction is slightly troubling.


It was not, Crowley thought guiltily, perhaps the most prudent action he could have taken. But he had been left to his own devices for far too long in Aziraphale's bookshop while the angel was Up There for a standard check-in, and Crowley's natural tendencies towards mayhem had been too strong to control.

Really, was it so surprising that Anthony J. Crowley had Fallen? He was a naturally mischievous being, after all, and one always searching for a laugh.

But maybe he should have thought of that before playing a prank on Aziraphale.

" _Crowley_!"

The shout actually made him cringe where he sat, a surprisingly sheepish expression twisting his face. And no, he was not hiding away from the angel in his apartment, thank you very much. He merely came to visit his plants, which were still very green and still very very scared; he had Fallen with the rest of Hell, and he had seen the face of Lucifer himself. He was never going to be intimidated by a mere angel- and a principality at that.

He was tempted to shift forms and slither under the couch to avoid this confrontation, but there was no use for such action, and besides, doing that would only prove his guilt.

He wouldn't put it past Aziraphale to pick him up by the tail, either, which was something he desperately avoided since the last time that happened. Of course, this time he wouldn't kill the angel by biting him either, which is what he had done before the Arrangement. He and Aziraphale had discorporated each other several times before they'd reached their truce but he had only ever killed the latter by his venom once and he had no wish to see anyone die in that way again.

He was a demon, but that didn't mean he didn't have his own sense of decency.

The door creaked open ominously- or was that only in his head?- and he firmly fixed a charming smile on his face as he turned around in his seat. "Can I help you, angel?"

Aziraphale was not easily ruffled. It took a very long time to find any of his buttons, let alone push them, but Crowley had known him for the past six thousand years and he knew exactly where all of them were.

The angel was currently carrying a large, heavy tome under his arm, his expression dour as he lightly shut the door behind him. The demon flinched slightly despite his best efforts- hearing the quiet click was worse than if Aziraphale had slammed it shut. "Yes," he said stiffly, "I do believe you can." He held out the tome, its cover peeling and stained with age, and flipped it open. "Can you explain to me how it's possible that I come back to my bookshop to find this? All of them, Crowley. _Every single one_."

Crowley blinked, half-glad that his sunglasses hid his eyes; better that the angel didn't see how much the information took him aback. "Every one?" Okay, never mind that- the way his voice squeaked the question was more than enough giveaway. "What d'you mean, Aziraphale?"

"I mean," the angel ground out through gritted teeth, "that every single one of my books are empty!"

Crowley snatched the book from Aziraphale's hands and stood in one smooth single motion, flipping through the pages himself as if to prove the angel wrong. But of course he couldn't be that lucky; there was not a word to be found on any of the yellowed crinkled pages. He turned back around and met Aziraphale's furious gaze. "I- I didn't-"

"You didn't what, Crowley?" Aziraphale demanded, snatching the tome back and cradling it against his side protectively. "You didn't think I would know it was you that did it? You didn't think that I would care that you did it?"

"Aziraphale-"

"Well I _do care_ , you blasted serpent! I hadn't even managed to find all of the books I'd had before Adam changed them all and now I can't even read these!"

It had been several hundred years since Crowley had seen the angel so angry, and he almost wanted to back away a few feet to distance himself from it. He held his ground instead and tried to explain. "Aziraphale-"

"Whatever excuse you have isn't enough, Crowley. You'll merely say you're a demon, and it's in your nature. And yes, I know that it is, but that's entirely besides the point!" Aziraphale barely stopped for breath as he continued, ignoring the fact that it was, in fact, _the point_. "I would be pleased if you wouldn't come around to the bookshop anymore, Crowley. Until I've fixed your little prank, I'm not sure I won't smite you for it." And without waiting for a reply (which Crowley found he didn't have, feeling suddenly gobsmacked) he turned smartly on his heel and exited as quietly as he had come.

~/~/~/~/~

The familiar comforting smell of old books washed over Aziraphale as he slipped through his shop's front door. Only book-lovers understood the fondness for that smell of musty old pages, and no one more than Aziraphale himself.

Rain had begun to fall as he walked down the street and now it pattered soothingly against the glass windows as he gently placed the tome under his arm on the counter. For a moment he looked at it sadly, and then he shook himself. Standing here moping about wasn't going to fix this problem. He had mainly gone to Crowley's flat to confirm that it had, in fact, been the demon who had done this, and Crowley's own reaction had been more than enough.

Aziraphale just didn't know _why_.

What had he done to make the demon do something like this? Had he said something he shouldn't have? Had his actions caused Crowley's superiors to punish him, and thus the demon had lashed out at Aziraphale to assuage his hurts? It had happened in the past, Aziraphale recalled, and to great affect before they had reached their Arrangement.

"But we've been friends for so long," he said aloud now. The books piled precariously around him made no reply but he hadn't really expected one in the first place. You would think that six thousand years and surviving the Almost But Not Quite Armageddon together would be the greatest mark of friendship, but maybe Crowley hadn't ever really felt about their Arrangement the way Aziraphale did.

He was a demon, after all.

And now Aziraphale would have to start from scratch all over again. He had so many books in his possession and many of them had never been categorized in any particular order- trying to recover their words would be almost impossible.

But it _could_ be done.

Aziraphale was a naturally optimistic being- all angels were, of course, otherwise they couldn't do their jobs for millennia long- but right now he could feel that optimism had taken a serious hit. He believed that his books could be restored, yes, even if he had to take several years doing so, but for now he needed to take a step back and simply calm himself.

Perhaps a long walk along the duck pond would help.

Or a trip to America. Yes, that could do very nicely. It had been far too long since he had been there, and maybe he could continue looking for more tomes to add to his collection.

Nodding to himself, he slipped his gloves on and headed for the door to go buy a plane ticket.

But first, he had defenses to put up.

~/~/~/~/~

Aziraphale had spelled him out of the bookshop.

Crowley stared at the offending doorknob with a mix of hurt and anger and bewilderment, although the anger and hurt were currently winning out. For all intents and purposes the angel had left if the sign in the door was any indication, and he had used sigils to make it impossible for Crowley to enter the entirety of the building.

Just Crowley.

The whole of Hell and its army could come waltzing merrily through with bells on and they wouldn't be repelled or discorporated when they did so. But Crowley would.

The knowledge hurt more than he would have expected. So the angel had left without waiting for an explanation and then made it impossible for Crowley to make things right?

Yeah, he saw how it was. And it made him angry.

"Fine, you sssanctimonious basstard," he hissed furiously, to hide the pain of the discovery, "be that way! Sssswan off and forget the fact that angelsss are ssssuppossssed to be forgiving." He was too angry to think of a way around the warding and he didn't have any particular interest in doing so right now, so he shoved his hands deep in his coat pockets and stalked off back down the crowded streets.

Most people would choose to believe that being a demon Crowley would hold onto anger and a grudge, but that would be untrue. It was truer to state that being a demon Crowley was more likely to _utilize_ anger and grudges than harbor them himself. In his mind there was simply too much to enjoy and see and do to waste it all on ill-feeling. No, it was actually Aziraphale who held onto the grudges between them much longer when something happened. Be that as it was, it really only took Crowley two walks around the duck pond before he felt his anger cool and he could think again.

Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if their roles were reversed. If Crawly had never Sauntered Vaguely Downwards and instead stayed firmly on the side of Heaven, and if Aziraphale had taken the Fall instead and served the masters of Hell. In the farthest recesses of his mind he played with the possibility that their temperaments were more suited for the opposite side than for the one they were currently on.

But of course it was impossible to know, and if his superiors ever found those thoughts he would be in serious trouble. Blasphemy was widely accepted in Hell's circles, but only when it came to God.

It worried him, though. Aziraphale was acting more like he had before their Arrangement- more like the principality that Hell knew him as.

No, not even that, really. More... like a demon.

Not Falling, no. That Crowley knew definitely. He wasn't sure if it was actually possible to tempt Aziraphale to Hell now, although it hadn't stopped the demon from attempting it occasionally over the last three thousand years. It was a question that he'd posed on random drunken nights, though, when the two of them were sequestered away in the back of the bookshop.

 _S'pose that angels can still Fall, 'Ziraphale. Jus' think about it. How could Lucifer fall in the firs' place, huh? How? Why was it jus' the Once, anyway?_

 _Ineff- ineffib... the Plan. That's what it 's._

It wasn't in an angel's nature to behave like Aziraphale had, and it wasn't in his best interest to do so, either.

So it was up to Crowley to fix it.

He was a bad influence, and he knew it. He was a demon, he was supposed to be. But it still stood that the two of them had a very peculier relationship of Balance- they were an angel and a demon, but they had a worrisome amount of the other in them and tipping too much one way upset the scales.

Yes, it was ever-frequently on Crowley's mind whether angels could still fall six thousand years after the fact and he would hate to know the answer.

Right then. Drastic times called for drastic measures. With a decisive nod to himself he stopped in front of the closed bookshop door and studied the best route inside. He was the Serpent, after all, and if he couldn't find a way then he didn't deserve to be called demon.

~/~/~/~/~

Aziraphale walked through a snowfall as he headed down the street of Soho towards the welcoming sight of his bookshop. It was nearing Christmas and the goodwill in the air was a mix of surprising and relieving. Such an abundance of positive feeling without the usual undercurrent of frustration and selfishness was unusual for the holiday season.

A layer of dust lay visible in the windows of the building as Aziraphale reached to unlock the door. He didn't have a key but nonetheless the doorknob turned for him without trouble and he stepped inside with the relieved air of the weary traveler returned home. The air was stale and the musty smell of books was more powerful than ever but he didn't mind it. Finally maybe he could sit in peace and solitude and begin to recover the words that Crowley had erased from his books, but first he needed a cup of hot chocolate.

He was heading to the back room to make himself just that when he felt the air shift. No, not the air; it was another presence he felt. Demonic. Stiffening, his expression darkening, he changed his course and silenced his footsteps as he made his way through the high teetering shelves. Now that he was listening he could hear the faint rustling of clothes in the near silence, sequestered in the far corner of the upper floor where his texts on religion were.

The lean shadowy figure was turned away from him as he approached, crouched over a tall pile of tomes with various papers spread out around on the floor. Aziraphale didn't speak, didn't even give a warning- he only sprang forward, heavenly light already flickering at his hands to smite his unwanted company down.

The demon leapt aside at the last possible second and disappeared over the stacks of books.

"Aziraphale! Don't! Don't, it's me!"

The angel straightened where he stood, his expression going slack. "Crowley?" he demanded. "What the De- what are you doing in here?"

His hands raised in placating surrender, Crowley straightened up. His dark glasses were gone and his serpentine eyes glowed unnaturally in the dim lighting as he met Aziraphale's gaze. "Ah- fixing up?" he offered helpfully, and backed up a step as Aziraphale advanced again.

"How did you get in here?" the angel demanded. "I'd warded you out before I left, it should have been impossible for you to break in!"

"Oh come off it, angel. I'm a demon, I can handle the impossible." Aziraphale's expression didn't change, and Crowley realized that maybe the angel still wasn't close to forgiving him. His own expression flickered with apprehension. "Er, I know you're probably still upset about the whole book thing, and I can understand that, really I can, but you've gotta realize that I didn't really mean to do it-"

" _How did you get past the warding_?" Forget about the books; right now Aziraphale was trying to understand how the demon could have manged to slip inside without combusting. Maybe this wasn't Crowley at all, maybe this was another demon sharing his friend's shape.

Crowley backed into the shelf behind him and Aziraphale watched in dread as one of the tomes teetered precariously before gravity pulled over the edge. The thud as it landed was loud and made them both flinch, but then Aziraphale's mouth dropped open.

"How in the world-?" Astounded, he moved forward and crouched above the book to start flipping through its pages. He looked up to meet Crowley's gaze. "The book has its words back," he whispered.

Now that Crowley sensed that Aziraphale's anger was vanishing in the face of this discovery, his anxiety loosened his tongue and made him nod. "Yeah," he agreed. "I'm sorry, really I am, because I've only gotten through a few hundred of these but I was hoping that I'd make it through them all before I made it back-"

"Wait, Crowley," Aziraphale ordered, standing up with the book in his hands. "Are you saying you've been in here this whole time fixing all of these? Putting their words back?"

The demon nodded again. "And believe me, it hasn't been easy. I've had to go back and forth on all of your records and your looseleaf papers and figure out which book was which-"

"Exactly how long have you been at this, my dear?" Aziraphale's voice and tone had significantly softened as he hugged the tome closer to him as sense started to spring from confusion.

"Since a few days after you left?" Crowley said somewhat sheepishly.

The angel stared at him. "That's it? You haven't left this place, or eaten, or done anything but work on getting my books back in order?"

"No." Crowley shrugged. "I was really expecting you to be gone a lot longer than you were, Aziraphale. A few weeks at least."

"Crowley, I've been gone for seven months."

The demon paused in his explanation, his eyes widening as the information registered. "Seven... what?"

Aziraphale couldn't help but start to smile. "You ridiculous beautiful serpent." Now that he was really looking he noticed that just like the rest of the store Crowley was covered with a layer of dust from sitting in one spot for so long. Seven long months. "Well, I suppose that explains why there's so much more goodwill out there for the Christmas season."

Crowley's mouth dropped open. " _Christmas_? Damn, I haven't done any sort of tempting or the like in seven months! Christmas is the best opportunity!"

Aziraphale clapped him on the back as he led them both back downstairs, feeling quite genial now that he understood what Crowley had been doing. "Come now, my dear, I'm sure you'll be out there soon dispensing your wiles. Before you do that, though, won't you share a cup of hot chocolate with me?"

"Shouldn't," Crowley sniffed. "You can get fat off that stuff."

He waved a hand vaguely in the air to enunciate his point, and Aziraphale's eyes widened as he noticed a large black burn on the back of it. Ignoring the demon's protests he snatched it in his own perfectly manicured fingers and stared in dismay. "Oh," he breathed.

"It doesn't really hurt, angel. I just didn't move through the warding fast enough. I used a spell to slightly shift my aura, you know, but it didn't quite hold long enough as I slipped through and I ended up slightly singed. Still, it did its job in the end."

"You're incredible, Crowley," Aziraphale told him in perfect seriousness.

"I hadn't meant to erase your books. I'd thought I'd merely shifted a few around, so you'd open one up thinking it was one thing but then it'd be something entirely different. And it wasn't supposed to be every book either, but I suppose something went... wrong. And now it's all balanced again, see?"

Aziraphale didn't know about _balanced_ , but he understood the gesture. He led them to the back room and sat them both down. The hot chocolate appeared steaming and ready to drink in front of them. "I do," he assured him. "And just in time for Christmas, too." He would have to find some way of mending the burn on Crowley's hand, but that could be after they'd caught up. He'd had the most wonderful time in America and he'd found several old tomes in the meantime, and he fancied that they would share stories and make amends as they worked on the books together.


End file.
